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Features
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| Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! | | Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! | | Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! | | Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! | | Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. | | Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! | | Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! | | NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! | | Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! | | Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! | | Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! | | SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! | | The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! | | NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! | | Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project | | The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! | | A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden | | Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma | | Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino | | New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! | | PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! | | Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters! | | N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! | | Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna |
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YojiTime
Reported by AlmostEddy
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Submitted 03-09-03 18:40
“With this here frantic, you’re really spoiling us”
Not only have Frantic brought us Yoji—an Osakan dance lord and Tidy ambassador—for a 2 hour set of some of the hardest fastest sounds you’ll hear on the planet, but also a whole mountain of golden shiny disco stars: Andy Farley, Eduardo Herrera, Nick Sentience, Phil Reynolds, Steve Hill, Tara Reynolds, Ting and many more forming an asteroid belt strong enough to take the impact of even this huge bank holiday weekend, with Logic’s last ever event at the Fridge, Creamfields and all the musical wonder that is the biggest free street party in Europe, Notting Hill carnival. So as the words of a carnival favourite Busta Rhymes’ ‘Fired Up’ rings in my ears, let’s take a look at how I warmed to Frantic’s proudly presented night of Yojitime. This line up was enough to wake Mount Fuji itself and low and behold the almost liquidated Coronet opens its doors to Emperor Yoji and the launch of his new CD, Music for a Harder Generation Part 2.
If you’ve ever stood on a dance floor after a Lab4 set and felt the room totally depressurise and wondered what happened as the floor empties, then you’re asking the wrong question. The question is, what didn’t happen, and you will find that the answer is Yoji Biomehanika, the only DJ who can take that pressure and cook up a music fest fit for a whole army of hardcore hi NRG dance floor monsters. This man has the force—he’s a real sabre-toothed darth monsta in DJ realms.
With a stomach full of onigiri and all manner of Japanese delights courtesy of my friend Akira’s birthday party, my head full of wine and in the clouds, I stepped out of Elephant & Castle tube, where I noticed two worlds of dance going their separate ways. Going right would take you to MOS. with all its glitz and razzamataz, and left to the Coronet, the venue that started Charlie Chaplin’s career and tonight home of Yojitime. Yes, I went with the fluffy boots and the spirit of Chaplin.
After pin-balling around some familiar faces hearing just snippets of people’s weekends, my head was still hazy so I had no chance of trying to take anything in apart from that sound coming from inside. As you walk into that huge main room, I feel it’s very welcoming with what seems to be a bonfire burning in the distance of all the colours of clubland, that sound of heavy bass and the smiling bar staff waiting to fill you in. After a quick pause for a lemonade (how can you not buy something from someone beaming at you), it was down one of the ramps at either side of the hall and deep inside Phil Reynolds and Nick Sentience’s B2B set. The floor was a sea of happy dance and with Tony De Vit trumpeting in the air I stomped there slap bang in the middle of the dance floor feeling my timing was perfect: this was how to start a bank holiday Sunday, no build up, just banging hard dance played by top notch DJs Sentience and Reynolds.
Some people say this venue is too impersonal and doesn’t hold an atmosphere, and ok, it’s not yet got the character of Camden Palace, or the Fridge’s highly charged atmosphere, has some way to go to beat the whole event that is Brixton Academy and can only dream of a sound system like the End’s, but I really feel it has enough of a combination of them all to be a great club. I know we live in a fast food nation but some things take time and this is no palace for K’ed up clubbers seeking a sit down or somewhere lavish for the VIP set to wallow: this is a dance hall, so lets get stomping…
‘Nick and Phil’ sounds like some police run government scheme to clean up the streets off south London and fill the prisons, but this back2back set was more an escape to freedom of the mind and a right good seeing to of the body. I guess after all that I passed over to the other side, as the next thing I can remember is a much lower ceiling, devilish red lighting and the sounds of Zulu Nation beating on my ear drums—yes, I had made it upstairs, for it was Mariatime (Eduardo Hererra’s charismatic manager). So with her hand in my back I waded though the trade mark colourful array of Eduardo Herrera supporters to their spiritual sound maker. In the far corner of the room he began to erupt with a fiery passion in a way only south Americans can and without me knowing it I was now a part of this fiesta and ecstatically happy to be there. DJ Herrera is a fantastic act to keep up with, he plays a cross section of dance music, hard mixing tech Latin and funky beats and is constantly changing his appearance, like an Inspector Cluso of the DJing world (with the emphasis on his master of disguises, not his ability to bungle) and just like a Peter Sellers film finds that spot that keeps you smiling. He enjoys pleasing the crowd and puts a hell of a lot of energy into all parts of his set.
The march of time has a funny way of echoing itself in fashion and music trends. Tonight was no different as Cally and Juice laid down a classic track of my teeny bopping days of the 80s, remixed into the sounds of hard dance and sporting a pair of shades that wouldn’t have gone amiss on the set of Battlestar Galactica. ‘I’ve got the Power’ must have snapped something in the head of one half of this DJing team, because as he jumped up on the mixing desk the only thing I could think of was another 80s hit, He-man, where the show would stop for him to cry out the same words, ‘I GOT THE POWER’.
It was hard to leave the main room, but after hearing more about Donna Birt’s sets than hearing her play for myself, it was a hop skip and jump up the stairs to the middle room.
There she stood up behind the decks with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face playing to a warm crowd. So, will this be a set to set hearts racing or is Ms Birt a robotic DJ pumped out from factory Frantic? The answer lies in the way she got me swinging from side to side and stomping my way to the front. It seemed to be a set of slower sounds to what was being played in the main room, but had a real nice feeling behind it and was almost trancey in its own uplifting way, so in my eyes Donna is the real ting.
Ting Ting oh yes don’t tell me I’ve missed my chance to hear one of the biggest noises to come back from Glasto’s Energy 24 tent. After this thought flashed through my head, I made my way to the booth to find out if I’d missed her. But the Ting was, with her insatiable appetite for parties and the people in them, unable to beat off all you hardened Ting fans. Earlier at Riot as you plied her with gifts—mostly champagne— she was most unwilling to let anyone down and downed anything that came her way, so after giving her energy to those that heard her set here in true party animal rock star fashion, she crashed out at the feet of Donna Birt like Tinkerbell snuggling up to Peter Pan. As it turns out Ms Birt is not only a good DJ but a good sport too: she kept her own stomp down and the mood as mellow as hard house will allow. And Ting, you’re a top gannet! So away with the fairies and back downstairs to the main room to catch the end of C&J’s set, which seemed to have bubbled up nicely, adding a big D for dance and turning the main room into a CJD get down, a right mad cow dance.
This was it: his time had come, our ears were primed, once more the sun was rising. The BPM count on the 1210s had been set to stun—the time for Yoji had begun. Whilst he played his first plate most raised their arms in the hope that the cultured master of HiNRG would past though them, enriching them with the power and spirit to dance and the spirit that is Yoji would do the rest. Those who had not readied themselves held their chests as their heart rates increased and eyes flickered, but be strong my brothers, be still my sisters, he will not forget those who have not trod his path before nor will this NRG pass you by. There will be no time to chase the tiger as it’s already among us biting at our ears.
That’s when I lost myself in total dance. Even the over-bassed system couldn’t take anything away from the music we were hearing. Many of the tracks he played were from his own album and remixed cuts from his latest offering, Music for a Harder Generation, which after all, we were here to celebrate the launch of. Yoji is not someone who can forget the raw NRG that came out of a lot of hardcore records of the late 80s and early 90s (no speeded up covers of Milli Vanilli here): this was the time of the late great Tony De Vit, Yoji was there too and since embarking on his illustrious career has become a world star, famed throughout the world of hard dance music.
He’s a cult figure and has his own cyber type following called hanikers—who go far beyond anything we have here in the UK—and his legendry Osakan parties (Ultrapumpin) are awash with colour and cleansed with HiNRG. A showman? No way: this man really believes in what he’s doing and in himself. This sometimes gets confused with arrogance, I guess a bit like in this country when a strong woman is seen to be a bitch. Power is what Yoji has, it shows in the way he looks, the music he makes and the way he moves you on the dance floor. In my eyes, he’s one hard bitch.
Speaking of strong women, Tara Reynolds played a B2B set with Andy Farley to wrap the night and the bank holiday weekend up that kept us all well away from the cloak rooms and right there firmly in dance utopia. Tara is someone who knows what she wants, so after some of Andy Farley’s off the scale stomp meter performances of late, she requested that the two should play out the night. Thank you for that Tara and Mr Farley, as it was the only B2B pairing of the night hard enough to follow Yoji.
This was not so much a review, more like an entry in my life of Yojitime, time well and truly spent. A frantastic night with only one real low, Steve Hill’s last set as a Londoner, as he’s off down under for winter and beyond.
Steve Hill—a real happy lone ranger in a town full of counterfeit cowboys. The man that brought us the double emu dance that has become a dance floor hit… well it always brings I smile to my face when I try it. Happy trails bro.
Thank you to midnightexpressoins and mrbicgit for the use of their photos.
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Other Features By AlmostEddy:
Polly's sexual party review
We have Transmission!
Back2school
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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Comments:
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From: macotaku on 5th Sep 2003 06:17.54
Damn nice bit of writing you got here!!!
I agree with your comments on the Coronet being a pure dancehall... having said that, I sure hope that Yoji play's somewhere else in October...
From: clubchick on 5th Sep 2003 09:26.37
Fab night, but the coronet still needs to get a personality & it needs a chillout zone. Great write up!
From: Fairy Princess on 9th Sep 2003 10:50.26
Yoji, saw him at the lsat Tidy weekender, What a legend!!!
From: spacekitty on 10th Sep 2003 17:17.03
anyone know when hes playin next ? i hear its in oct sometime ?
From: disabled15 on 18th Sep 2003 22:41.02
Whilst I understand Security have a job to do, it does not take anything to be Courteous to people. I saw one incident of a very young cyberdog kid being physically dragged away from the main dance floor screaming and shouting. They must know that people may not always be in a compredo state and should be handled a bit more gentle. Some club security are great and actually speak to you as human beings. Courtesy costs nothing and normally gets a better result and keeps the customers coming back.
From: E-nrg on 1st Oct 2003 13:51.21
Does he really play the hardest & fastest sound on planet? How crazy he is compared to Proteus? Looking forward seeing him.
From: Annabelle One Inch on 1st Oct 2003 17:57.47
Just to let you know, Yoji's last dates for 2003 are as follows: Slinky, Bournemouth on the 24th October and Goodgreef alongside Lab4 on the 25th October!!! Yoji is also now confirmed to play at Riot at The End on the 26th October, for all you Londoners! So we'll see you there!
E-nrg - in answer to your question, Yoji does play hard in terms of the styles he plays are hard (trance, techno, nrg) but there are big musical elements to his set with big epic riffs and grooves. As for fast people think he plays fast because he pitches the decks up, but it is because he plays a lot of German and Italian stuff which is a lot slower, so he's still only around 150bpm ish. Proteus is a totally different style....but still a very wicked DJ and top guy!
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